I was recently inteviewed by Linda Briggs of Campus Technology. We had a conversation about podcasting in education and I think she did an excellent job taking my minutes of rambling and consolidating the responses.

I was recently asked by Dennis Lembree, the founder of web development company CheckEngine USA which specializes in web usability, standards, and accessibility, to be a guest on Web Axe: a podcast and blog featuring practical web design accessibility tips.

Dennis speaks with Jeffrey Frey and discusses accessible podcasting, guidelines on audio/video web accessibility, and Jeff’s role at Rice University.

Jeff is the Web Services Manager for Enterprise Applications in the Information Technology Department at Rice University. He provides technology solutions for faculty, staff, and students on campus as well as teaches new technology courses at the School of Continuing Studies. He is available for podcasting consulting, is involved in the creation of podcasts for businesses and non-profits, and has owned a technical consulting company and an audio/video recording studio.

Transcription and other related services

Included in the new Apple operating system, Leopard, is an application under the Utilities folder called Podcast Producer. It’s an easy way to publish podcasts without going through a lot of the steps that you need to now with automated processing, encoding, tagging, uploading etc… it makes it very easy for anyone to publish a podcast.

What I haven’t quite figured out is why they wouldn’t allow the application to be fully functional without a server component as well. Upon clicking the icon on the client, it immediately asks you for a server name. This server will be used to publish to once the audio / video has been captured, or once you have designated a file that you want to use for the podcast. Cancelling this screen takes you out of the applicaiton.

If you do desgnate a server location, username, and password, you can use a built in microphone or camera to record your file… say you’re done, complete a couple meta data fields, and the file is encoded, tagged, and put into an iTunes readable RSS feed on your server. It’s that easy.

I think this is a GREAT tool for institutions, churches, small businesses, etc. that can put up their own Leopard server and want to easily publish podcast feeds to their website. We’re just dabbling in this now, and you may be able to play with this more than I right now… but… I’m sure I’ll have updates for you on how we’re using it in the future.

I just got a note from K12LEARN folks who seem to have a similar product to those that I’ve talked about for Higher-Ed, but focusing on K-12. Their “About Us” states that it’s cost-effective, though I haven’t contacted them yet about that, and they seem to have the same goals in mind as I do: enabling people to “utilize technology as a teaching and learning tool to it’s fullest extent.”

A lot of studios pride them selves in having a ‘dead’ room. What’s that mean? 1 – it’s free and clear of ambient noise and 2 – it has enough treatments in it to soak up any sound made in the room (so as not to hear an echo).

When recording at home, sometimes it’s hard to get a dead room. Heating/AC vents, windows, neighbors, etc. all contribute to those ambient noises that you’re trying to keep out of your recording. You can also be the culprit with loose clothing, watches, a squeaky chair, computer fan, and even things like moving papers around.

I get questions all the time around the subject, and want to talk about how to make a live/dead room.

A completely dead room is great if you have a lot of equipment to put live sound back in (depending on the level). In most cases, it’s good to have a little bit of presence in your room to make the recording sound alive. The trick for making a live/dead room is curtains.

Hang curtain rods at the wall ceiling joint all around the room (like crown molding). Get the bar type that you can just thread rings onto. Buy curtains that extend from ceiling to floor, and buy enough curtains to wrap all the way around the room and buy them thick enough that they will trap sound coming at them, and keep sound from getting through to you (like say from a window or door).

“Open” the curtains and tuck them in the corners of the room when not recording or recording and needing a live room. The curtains in the corners will act as bass traps, but will leave the walls open for some genuine reverb. When you need a dead room, close the curtains… pulling them over doors, windows, wood furniture against the walls, pictures, etc. Once you understand your room a little better, you may want to close just one wall, partially close another, or open opposite facing walls depending on your microphone placement.

Of course, I always recommend auralex room kits for recording studios… but if you’re a home studio and use your room for multiple things like live recording, dead recording, and a game room :)… curtains are an easy and a relatively inexpensive way to treat your room.

Intellipodcast (http://www.intellipodcast.com) appears to be an interesting product. Billed as a solution for businesses, I’m supposed to be getting a demo shortly on how we might be able to use it at schools and universities. From their website:

The mission for intellipodcast is to create a site where individuals can upload either narrative text, sound, or video for automated production into RSS feeds, blogs, podcasts or videocasts and upload to iTunes.

Intellipodcast automates the entire process of podcasting and media sharing

Everything is done from the intellipodcast website eliminating the need for experienced user technical knowledge

Apparently, a educational institution can purchase the software and implement it with a little help. Allowing faculty, staff, and students to create and share media through blogs, instant messaging, image sharing… and of course podcasting.

I’ll let you know how the demo goes… email or comment if you have had any experience with Intellipocast.

There were two ad vendors at the Podcast and New Media Expo this year that, if you’re not familiar already, I wanted to tell you about. I am using the first one I list here for a certain situation through libsyn, and will start to demo the second shortly so that I can get some first hand experience at it.

1. Kiptronichttps://kiptronic.com/podcaster/public/tour.jsp
Kiptronic is a dynamic ad insertion company that you can utilize yourself, or use the built in features from your podcast hosting vendor like libsyn. I like it for several reasons. 1 – You can ‘swap’ ads with other podcasters. Record your clips, intros, ads, etc. and search the directory for podcasters who’s podcast you’d like to advertise on, and who might want to advertise on your podcast. 2 – Depending on when/where ads are inserted into your podcast, you can record intros and outros so that the first or last words that your listeners hear can be yours (and not an ad). 3 – you can pick and choose the options of your ads, including the sector of advertisers you’d like to stay with. There is also an area for you to explain to Kiptronic ad-podcast matchers what your podcast is about, and any advertisers you know you’d like to be involved with. 4 – Kiptronic works with both audio and video podcasts.

2. Revverhttp://one.revver.com/go/about
Revver is for video podcasts only, but is a pretty sweet deal. Designed for more of the video sharing crowd, it would be used for podcasters who want to get their videos out to masses, and don’t mind an ad being tacked onto the end of their video (especially if it’s free, and they get to split the earnings 50/50 with Revver). They actually host your video and pair your video with a targeted advertiser. You can then send that video all over the web, embed the video in your website, or link back to Revver. Whenever anyone follows the link from the last frozen ad frame from your video to the advertiser’s site, that is recorded with Revver and you get the proceeds.

If you’ve got a podcast, ever thought about monetizing it, but thought it was too complicated or hard to do so. Think again. After an account set up on Revver or Kiptronic, you can release your podcasts or upload your videos as usual, and they’ll do the rest. If you have an account with TubeMogul (a company that I told you about a few days ago), they will upload your video to Revver for you.

You may see and hear ads on some upcoming podcasts as I play with these advertisers in order to learn more for my students and clients. As always, as I have good or bad experiences, you’ll be the first to know.

TubeMogul is a company that will take your video and upload it to multiple video sharing sites (like YouTube, Google Video, Revver, etc.) and then display back to you statistics on where you’re getting the most play (among other things).

Best of all, it’s free… and it’s open to independent podcasters as well as major companies.

I also like the analytics because they can be downloaded for certain periods and emailed to advertisers, so they have solid numbers on your videos.

Some people only do a podcast and do not put their video on other video sharing sites for fear of ‘losing control’ of them. I agree, having to check 2, 5, or 10 other sites to see how many hits you get would be a bit hectic, but with tubemogul, they take care of all that for you.

Check them out, and if anyone tries them or is using them, email me or comment and let me know what you think.

I don’t think I’ve ever done a post on these two magazines, but I saw them at the expo this year and it reminded me that I should.

Any magazine that comes out about podcasting is going to have a lot of ads. They’re going to have to be ad driven in order to make enough money to produce the magazine. That’s just a fact. What I like about these magazines though… is that I actually READ the ads. Their all about stuff I need (okay… want) anyway and things that I can tell clients and friends they should be buying (mostly so I can play with them and not have to pay). Also, you’ll see full page spreads on the latest class, conference, or discussion that you should be attending that you didn’t know about before.

Podcast User Magazinehttp://www.podcastusermagazine.com
Over 20 issues now, and each one has interviews, news that you should actually read and know, and reviews of upcoming events as well as explanations of past ones. The best thing I like about this magazine is that is usually has some educational articles in it as well. Last month was about microphone proximity. Maybe the very best thing about it is that the online pdf version of it is a free download.

Blogger&Podcasterhttp://www.bloggerandpodcaster.com
They are on their sixth or seventh issue now, and it has rapidly become a great magazine. Not only does it have reviews of hardware / software, in-depth looks at conferences, lots of short snippets from podcasting news, but the contributing writers are great. The website is a bit of a struggle to navigate and ‘read’ the magazine from, so I suggest subscribing for the $80 a year.

The Links and Transcript to “From the Podcast and New Media Expo” (4:53) released September 29, 2007 (click here to listen):

Hi, this is Jeff Frey from the Why and How of Podcasting. I’m at the podcast and new media expo in ontario california and gathering some great information to pass on to clients, people that want to me to advise them on their podcasts, or those who want me to teach a class for them.

Speaking of classes, the course that I was going to teach at the Suzanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies at Rice University this fall was cancelled. I was going to use that to keep creating content on my blog and this podcast, but since it was cancelled, that took some wind out of my sails and I haven’t been producing much since.

It seems odd because the last class I taught was full and with a waiting list and this one only had a few people sign up. So, maybe it wasn’t advertised as well or something. Anyway. If you were one of those few people who signed up… send me an email and contact me about coming out to your location to do a day or two day course, or a directed class of some sort.

That goes for anyone in the Houston area really (unless you want to fly me somewhere, but), go to my blog at jdfrey.wordpress.com and check out a sample course outline under the podcast instruction link. If you like what you see, and you want to talk with me about coming out and teaching a course, email me at. Also, I’ve been doing more podcasting advising, creating, publishing, and things that businesses, educational institutions, and even just individuals are looking for in the podcasting realm. I’m ready and available to talk to you about your podcasting needs.

Right now, I’m creating this podcast just to get those of you listening to head to out my blog and check out my notes from the expo this year. It’s still going on for another day, and I’ll be busy trying to post things all this week. Some new hardware and software has come out, and I’m going to have to get back and research them a bit more before I tell you what I think of them. There IS a product I can tell you about that I want you to check out called copytrans. If you’ve got an ipod and you’ve ever been scared about losing your ipod songs, it does a full back up of you ipod including playlists and personal info. If you get a new computer, it does the same thing… it will load the info from your ipod into itunes instead of the other way around. If you accidentally delete a song, you can get it back… it’s just a great tool all around. I like it so much I’ve got a link on the side bar of my blog. J-d-f-r-e-y dot wordpress.com, click on the image on the right side of the screen, and I’ll also link to it in the transcript for this podcast (http://www.copytrans.net) along with a testimonial I found from someone else: http://jeffchin.com/2007/07/27/recover-your-itunes-library-with-copytrans/

Lastly, I’m recording this podcast on my H4 Handy recorder from the conference. If you’ve listened to me before, you know that for portable recording I went from an Edirol R-09 to this H4 because of the input jacks and the multi-tracking capabilities. Well, at the conference today, I was able to demo the Zoom H2 Handy Recorder… and think I might have another portable recorder in my pocket real soon. It’s about half the size of the H4, but seems to have the same sound quality for less money. I think if you don’t need the features of the H4, I’m going to have to say that the H2 is my top pick for highly-portable recording right now.

The unit comes with a small tabletop stand, an adapter that allows it to be mounted on a mic stand, a windscreen, a five hundred and twelve megabyte SD card. It will handle a 4 GB card, which is awesome, and that will get you about six hours of 44.1kHz recording, or, they say, 138 hours in MP3 format. Here’s a tip though, you’ll only get four hours of life from the 2 AA batteries that power it, so you’ll need to plug it in if you’re recording that long. It comes with an external power supply.

If you want use it for sound recordings, the unit even has a built in tuner and metronome. If you have multiple people or instruments, it has three microphones, one in the center and two on either side, this not only allows for stereo imaging, but you can also record from the front or rear… even doing Surround 5.1.

The only thing that the guys selling it at the expo said people complain about is the small buttons and interface… but… you know… I think I can deal with that for the amount money it costs… it’s just $200. So, for the cost, the portability, and the sound quality that I listened to during the demo… I don’t think you can beat it. I’ll have a link on my blog to the manufacturer and to a great review I found on the O’Reilly Digital Media website.

Franklin McMahon went through 10 habits to making your podcast a dominate force on the new media scene… and how to be a rock star. He talked about how these secret habits need to be practiced over and over again. Here are my notes:

1. Market out of the podcast bubble
⁃ other podcasters first, targeted promo creation
⁃ but not just that, do press releases, tv, radio
⁃ target the world, how to tvs, cell phones, game consoles, etc.
⁃ work social networks and get into where your niche is
⁃ quality of places and what you do with them is better than quantity
2. Take aim at profitability
⁃ your podcast is making as much as you want it now, no more no less
⁃ deal with money, be comfy with it
⁃ make it a mission to make money if you want to, focus on it
⁃ don’t handle revenue or sales, delegate it
⁃ make sure profits help you grow the show
3. Promote what separates you
⁃ look at what you have that others do not have
⁃ be unique and stress your strength
⁃ how many elements does your show contain that can’t be found elsewhere?
⁃ you? you can’t get you on other shows, promote that
⁃ make them love you or hate you, people get passionate about it
⁃ don’t make it so everyone will love it, disagree with some things
4. Be a rock star
⁃ confidence, big vision, no talent needed… just drive, be tenacious
⁃ face forward, market everything with your images
⁃ a lot is luck, chance meetings, running into people, etc
⁃ get a professional photographer
⁃ secret to getting what you want… ask
⁃ audio is intimate, video is personal… fans are dedicated
5. Create a community
⁃ it’s a family, not a show, bring people into your community
⁃ a community will stay with you if something goes wrong
⁃ they can be steered as well, moved to do things
⁃ higher numbers let you take more changes
⁃ start a movement, rally the fans, let them do things
6. Content before marketing
⁃ don’t get lost on the web, keep the content flow going
⁃ under promise and over deliver
⁃ treat stats professionally, not personally
⁃ stats are like waves, need to shake them to get them going
⁃ don’t let production weight you down, low res is better than no res
⁃ blog is not the best website for every show… think differently
7. Don’t make a show, build a brand
⁃ do several shows, formats, ratings, demographics, etc.
⁃ time, skills, imagination, and who… 4 career stages
⁃ niche or go wide, middle ground is boring
⁃ create a new market, a new industry, be first, be best
⁃ know who your market is, keep on topic
⁃ position yourself as an expert, become the go-to person on it
8. Have a game plan
⁃ have a plan, goals, benchmarks, roadmap how it’s going to work
9. Delegate what you’re not good at
⁃ get a designer for your logo and website
⁃ some might not even get to the show if the site is lame
⁃ you may have 30 seconds to win them over on your website
10. Smart Interacting
⁃ message boards vs. emails
⁃ once they are in your world, work hard to keep them
⁃ have other people
⁃ watch when you let people behind the scenes, balance, don’t reveal everything
⁃ keep some things a mystery
11. One more thing
⁃ help others, it always comes back to you

I was able to demo the Zoom H2 Handy Recorder at the Podcast and New Media Expo today and think I might have another portable recorder in my pocket real soon. Right now, I’m walking around with a H4, but the little H2 (about the size of a deck of cards) seems to have the same sound quality for less money. I think if you don’t need the features of the H4 (like multitracking), I’m going to have to say that the H2 is my top pick for highly-portable recording right now.

The unit comes with a small tabletop stand, an adapter that allows it to be mounted on a mic stand, a windscreen, a 512mb SD card. It will handle a 4 GB card (awesome) and that will get you six hours of 44.1kHz recording or, they say, 138 hours in MP3 format. Whoa! Here’s a tip though, you’ll only get four hours of life from the 2 AA batteries that power it… so you’ll need to plug it in if you’re recording that long. It comes with an external power supply.

If you want use it for sound recordings, the unit even has a built in tuner and metronome. Multiple people or instruments? It has three microphones, one in the center and two on either side, this not only allows for stereo imaging, but you can also record from the front or rear… even doing Surround 5.1.

The only thing that the guys selling it at the expo said people complain about is the small buttons and interface. You know… I think I can deal with that for the amount money it costs: $200. I think the cost, the portability, and the sound quality that I listened to during the demo make up for it. Also, if the volume is too low when you record, you can actually normalize it.

When you say Viral Video what do you think of?Brett:
– good product
– good packaging
– good distribution
– and something that is remarkable… a video that makes you want to say something to someone about itMolly:
– i think of a frustrating endeavor
– a video that appears out of nowhere, crops up
– cannot predict it
– examples: d*ck in the box, ms south carolina , dramatic squirrel, sneezing panda, talking catsTim:
– you CAN plan to have a viral video
– showed the internet people video
– spectacle comes first, then story
– early video documented things (like a train) but viral is a movie (like a train robbery)
– must have emotions triggered by the video (which he stated last year)

Can you plan for virality?Brett:
– it’s getting harder to be seen
– send it everywhere (distribution)
– tag it and make the right meta data decisions, have the right thumbnail (packaging)
– prom queen has great thumbnails
– an audience or a userbase will forward the video aroundMolly:
– planning is key, yes, but it doesn’t insure that you’ll be viral
– everyone does not have to be in on it
– you should have an audience in mind
– it will make the video more effectiveTim:
– the leave brittney alone guy – 10 million views in one week
– lots of emotions evoked – now has a tv deal
– french maid – funny and sexy
– 6 episodes – last episode has 3 million views on youtube
– meta data terms – girls, sexy, funny, hot, etc. for french maid tv
– faith based podcasts shouldn’t use those :), but there are ones that you should use

How to build an audience?
– what’s the emotional component of your video?
– take small clips that may be viral out of your larger video
– distribute those yourself
– tell them where they can get more content or see the whole video at the end
– emotions: love, joy, surprise, anger, sadness, fear
– you need to trigger at least two of those emotions
– who is out there that hates what you do and how can they be vocal about it

If you have questions about this, comment or contact me. I just do enough to trigger memories for me. All in all, a very good session on viral videos.

I’ve been asked if I was going… and yes… I’m here now. I will share my notes, observations, and any cool hardware/software that I find with you.

So far, I’ve found some nice hardware/software on the expo floor and went to one session on Podcasting 101. I wanted to go to that session so I could see if there was anything that the first session of the podcasting conference was telling beginning podcasters anything different than I was teaching in my class… and fortunately… it wasn’t different.

About Jeffrey Daniel Frey

Jeff is the Web Services Manager for Enterprise Applications in the Information Technology Department at Rice University. He provides technology solutions for faculty, staff, and students on campus as well as teaches new technology courses. He is involved in the creation of podcasts for businesses and non-profits, and is currently focusing on how new technologies can integrate and benefit universities and businesses alike. Jeff is available to speak or teach workshops on podcasting or other new internet technologies, and can consult with you on your company/non-profit. learn more about Jeff here>>----------- EMAIL JEFF -----------